Prior to arriving at Arizona State University, professor Robert Boyd taught at Duke University, Emory University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

He is considered a forerunner in the field of cultural evolution. Specifically, his research focuses on the evolutionary psychology of the mechanisms that give rise to – and influence – human culture, and how these mechanisms interact with population dynamic processes to shape human cultural variation.

This work is summarized in three books, two co-authored with P. J. Richerson: "Culture and the Evolutionary Process," and "Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution." His new book, "A Different Kind of Animal," will be available from Princeton University Press in November 2018. Boyd has also co-authored an introductory textbook in biological anthropology, "How Humans Evolved," with his wife, ASU primatologist Joan Silk.

He and Silk have two grown children and live in Phoenix. His hobbies are rock climbing and bicycling.

Unlike other organisms, humans acquire a rich body of information from others by teaching, imitation, and other forms of social learning, and this culturally transmitted information strongly influences human behavior. Culture is an essential part of the human adaptation, and as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion or thick enamel on our molars. My research is focused on the evolutionary psychology of the mechanisms that give rise to and shape human culture, and how these mechanisms interact with population dynamic processes to shape human cultural variation. I have done much of this work in collaboration with Peter J. Richerson.

Publications

Books

R. Boyd, in press, R. A Different Kind of Animal, Princeton University Press, publication date October, 2017
McElreath and R. Boyd, 2007. Mathematical Models of Social Evolution: A guide for the perplexed, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

C. Moya, R. Boyd, and J. Henrich. Reasoning about cultural and genetic transmission: Developmental and cross-cultural evidence from Peru, Fiji, and the United States on how people make inferences about trait transmission, Topics in Cognitive Science, 7, 1-16, 2015.

Culture Matters: How culture made humans outliers in the natural world. Two Tanner Lectures at Princeton University, April 2016.

How humans became outliers in the natural world, Political Economy Workshop, NYU, February 2016

The evolution of human uniqueness, Invited lecture at Advanced International Seminar on Cognition and Culture in Evolutionary Context at Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Sept 2015.

The first great divergence, Invited lecture, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Program on Institutions, Organizations and Growth, March 2015.